In spending time with my very quickly growing adolescent niece, she mentioned that she writes as an outlet but is unable to do it as often as she wants because she’s not motivated. Being the responsible uncle that I am, I made her the promise that I would match her writing frequency.
So of course she recently called me out because in the 3 months since we'd spoken, I’d only managed two pieces.
Therefore in the spirit of keeping my promises and whatnot, I’m going to start writing (a lot more) regular pieces (that aren’t necessarily meant to be socially responsible), about things I have fun thinking about at 3am. Hopefully you’ll have fun reading them.
Let’s talk about Artemis II.
Like most, I was genuinely excited when I heard about the mission, though now, I’m not sure if it was a fiction of my imagination that it was actually positioned as “man returning to the moon”.
Now, when anyone of sound mind hears “man aid returning to the moon,” their mind automatically goes back to man landing on the moon for the first time — and so half the reason I and many others around the world were following the mission so keenly was to experience a slice of what it must have felt like 50 years ago when the entire world watched man land on the moon for the first time.
Cut to: there was no such thing. And honestly, I think I was more annoyed than horrified. Here’s why: because I sieve out the amount of news — doomsday propaganda — I willingly allow myself to be exposed to every day, I’d usually carve out 10 to 15 minutes to check in on mission progress because I didn't want to risk missing history. So imagine my reaction and shared frustration when the astronauts only seemed to be sending back the equiv of #ShotOniPhone photos and random motivational quotes from space. “When will these people land?” I asked my circle. Only to discover they wouldn't. Well, they intended to land back on Earth, but the actual moon? No such thing.
My first really mean thought was: we just sent four astronauts into space to shoot a campaign for the iPhone? Not proud of it.
So I tuned out of the mission after that and just wished them well in low orbit or dark orbit or wherever it was they were supposed to be.
But then my kind started to wade into all of the conspiracy theories and how this would perhaps weaponise the conspiracy theorists themselves even further.
Since anyone has been old enough to appreciate science, the one historical cliché that keeps coming up is the fact that 0we sent people to the moon with less computational power than we have in our phones now”. It’s actually one of the ways we illustrate and celebrate the speed with which human technological and computational capacities have exponentially grown.
And so, playing the devil’s advocate — how are the conspiracy theorists not right? When the alleged first moon landing happened, the conspiracy was that it had been staged. As a matter of fact, the movie Fly Me to the Moon is considered more of a narrative documentary than a piece of fictional entertainment by many in those circles — except there was no cat and the outcomes were reversed. (You have to see it to understand what I just said so go watch it. It’s worth it.)
But one can begin to appreciate the point of view of the theorists, right? If we sent men to the moon 50 years ago and televised it all with less computational power than an average phone has today, why are we simply choosing to fly by it now? Now?! What's the point? Where is that historically tectonic shift of hope for humanity revived for a new generation? Where is that seismic dopamine hit this feat gave the previous generation?! I feel robbed.
Yes, yes, I know — they were spotting new craters and textures and geological elements so they could have a better understanding of the surface of the moon. But how does a geologist looking out of the window — a very small window, I might add — of a floating vessel provide better results as to the nature of the surface of the moon than actually getting onto the bloody moon and looking at it, scooping up samples of it, playing with it and letting the proverbial moon sand sift through one’s albeit gloved fingers? Isn’t this the equivalent of me declaring how I'm longing to feel beach sand run through my fingers, while I’m actually walking past the beach, but choosing to just photograph and hashtag it instead?
Doesn’t something about this entire mission feel like we didn’t approach the moon as people who had been there before, but as people who were doing a location recce in order to return for the first time at a later date after getting a bit more information? Almost as if we were getting tourist information ahead of our summer journey to a strange land? Just me?
Of course there are many different reasons to do a flyby. Health and safety as an example. For instance, if I was an astronaut being sent to the moon but we’d heard, or seen through our giant telescopes on Earth, that there had been some activity sensed on the moon — of course I would want to boldly go have a look-see from a sensible distance. But I obviously wouldn’t land, that would be silly because I've watched the Transformers and they literally have a movie called Dark of the Moon which I suspect is loosely based on fact. Ahem.
So by all means we would fly by, pull out our telescopes, and check to see if all was well instead of risking getting eaten by the aliens upon landing. Nobody is trying to be one small snack for alienkind. In that scenario, of course, a flyby obviously makes sense — for all of humanity, as a matter of fact — so the astronauts don’t land back on Earth with some kind of virus and kick off the plot to a doomsday movie. Therefore, if that was the actual context, but the details are classified now, the mission begins to make more sense, because it surely could not all be about sighting geological tendencies from space. One of Elon’s rockets certainly could’ve been equipped with enough Samsung camera power to do that and return before dusk.
It doesn’t help that one of the mission commanders in an interview mentioned that he was excited because “this was the first time humanity was going into low orbit”, and “this was the first time we were going to the moon”. Sir, what… pardon? It was quickly brushed away as a slip of the tongue. Sounds Freudian, no?
Anyways, I put all those doubts aside based on my belief in humanity and said, well, it’s possible we haven’t been there for 50 years, so we’re testing different things so we can get back to it properly.
And then I looked up the date for the next mission. Turns out the next mission — and the one after that, actually — don’t intend to land on the moon either. Meanwhile, Elon is preparing to send a payload to the moon within the same window. Come on guys — if an independent contractor who came out of nowhere and essentially fired up the entire space program again is going to send a rocket into space that can deliver a payload to the moon and return back to Earth safely, there is no reason that we are not landing on the moon before 2028; unless we do intend to land, but it will be our first time, ever, and so we need our homework done really well — hence this flyby, the one to come, and Elon’s. And if this is really our first time, then of course I get it. Everybody gets it.
No one would risk the lives of four brave humans in completely new and previously unexplored territory. No one would send them there unprepared, ill-equipped and alone. No one would want to risk our first contact with the aliens being: “Oh snap! Run!! Houston! There’s something here! Run!”
So the whole world would get it if this was our first time. Which begs the question — is this our first time? Is this going to be humanity’s first time on the moon? In which case, we just need to acknowledge the fine investigative journalism of the “it was staged” conspirators who have brought us this far.
“But Obii, why would we need to stage it?” — I’m so glad you asked.
JFK was an icon. When he mandated that mission to the moon, he gave America a moonshot, pun intended — something audacious and bold and American. it pivoted America’s narrative and took away attention and power from the Soviet agenda. It was something that demonstrated America’s force in the world by moving not just America but all of humanity forward. It put fire in everybody’s bones, and I believe as he made those statements, he put fire into even those who were fighting for independence and freedom around the world. So it was a good thing for everybody — something for all of humanity to look forward to, and believe in, qnd hope towards, and unify people.
Much in the same way seeing a national team qualify for the World Cup erupts a sense of excitement and hope, new energy, fresh resolve and nationalism anew from coast to coast.
And then he got assassinated.
It was an earth-shattering moment, experienced globally, but one that shook America to its core. The assassination sucked away hope and replaced it with the sinking feeling of helplessness; it left America and Americans feeling vulnerable, reinforced anxiety, and had many questioning America’s place in the world.
So what better way to rally a broken nation together again than to push forward with the ambitious mission that its beloved slain leader had ordained?
And so you can see where I’m going with this, can’t you? You can see how imperative success was — or at least the illusion of success — for the general goodwill, resolve and spirit of America.
You can see how important optics would be in this scenario. And you can see how, like a suitor wooing his lover, the ends justified the means, however elaborate the scheme.
For a country that leads the world in brand propaganda and entertainment production values, what would you do if you had suddenly found out that you didn’t actually have enough computational power yet to fulfil the wishes of your departed leader?
I’m just playing devil’s advocate, but it does give you pause, doesn’t it?
Anyway. As I have gone down this spiral of thoughts, I have also begun to think to myself that if they could stage-manage it and produce the entire thing in a studio somewhere in Nevada 50 years ago, they could easily — with access to a lot more technological and production capacity now — have put on an even more brilliant spectacle for us instead of the decidedly underwhelming alternative of sending us a couple of random pics of the moon.
So yes. Maybe we did go to the moon. And maybe we intend to return for the second time, but we are just doing our due diligence so Nike knows what kind of footwear they need to design before they land and whatnot.
In conclusion, maybe the first moon landing was not infact staged in a studio far, far away, and maybe that’s why there was no need to stage this one either.
But maybe, somewhere in the murmuring of the conspirators, there is truth. And maybe the reason this wasn’t elaborately staged was that it couldn’t be. Because in the same way that our computational power has exponentially grown since the first landing, the Earth has also exponentially shrunk in a way that there’s no place far enough that, if they had tried to stage it, someone wouldn’t have discovered.
In today’s world, somebody would have surely leaked it and the world would’ve quickly gotten a hold of it via the myriad of channels that are now too many to censor. These people found Area 51, remember? As a consequence, the image of America in the world would be forever shattered — both in hindsight and in foresight. Is that a risk you would be willing to take?
Probably just coincidence it launched on April Fool’s Day, then.
I wish you luck trying to unpack that.
At least Apple got great PR out of this entire thing — and that’s a good enough reason for any mission (and a fitting send-off for “Tim Cooked”) if you ask me.